


The Serpent and the Frog

by Inkribbon796



Series: Masks and Maladies [82]
Category: Jacksepticeye Fandom, Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Fake Relationship, Illusions, M/M, Magic, Misunderstandings, no one in the relationship is having the misunderstanding, superhero au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-12
Updated: 2020-07-12
Packaged: 2021-03-04 19:20:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,745
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25211545
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Inkribbon796/pseuds/Inkribbon796
Summary: After Virgil goes missing, the other Light Sides goes looking for him. Thye don’t quite find the person they want to.
Relationships: Anxiety | Virgil/Creativity | Roman/Logic | Logan/Morality | Patton, Dark Creativity | Remus "The Duke" Sanders/Deceit | Janus Sanders
Series: Masks and Maladies [82]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1538131
Comments: 2
Kudos: 48





	The Serpent and the Frog

**Author's Note:**

> This was supposed to come out along with the last installment, why? Because I need to get this story going.

To say Patton was panicking was an understatement.

It was 11 at night, the three Light Sides were walking up and down the Gainesville section of town, Logan was occupying his concentration, instead of over-worrying himself, by calculating a radius Virgil could have walked or been taken — willingly or otherwise — by car or bus within the last five hours since he was last spotted by Eric. He didn’t want to have to recalculate his estimates or add in a trajectory with airplane routes.

“How could I not notice!?” Patton was sobbing, repeatedly having to dip his hands under the mask to clear his eyes. “What if he’s hurt or lost?”

“We will find him Patton,” Logan reassured sharply, also trying to keep himself calm. “Virgil would not have let anything happen to him without a fight.”

“I bet it was that nasty snake, or the Duke,” Roman had kept his sword drawn the whole time.

“If we cannot find him within the next ten minutes we will ask them personally,” Logan promised.

“When I see them, I’ll—” Roman began to vow.

“Pat!”

All three of the Sides turned to see Virgil, still in his cloak, his eyeliner and eyeshadow looking like it had been hastily reapplied.

“V— Anxiety!” Patton yelled out in relief. “Are you hurt? What happened?”

When Patton got within arm’s length, Virgil shot out one of his spider legs and hooked into Patton’s sleeve, using Patton’s momentum to throw him at a nearby trash can.

Patton let out a little pained squeak.

“What the heck?” Roman demanded, his sword instantly turning into a wooden katana as he dropped into a fighting stance. “What was that for?”

Virgil’s remaining spider legs popped out and he just smiled at him.

“Fine, _en garde_!” Roman yelled and charged.

“Roman, that would be unwise,” Logan began but fell back into silence, folding his arms in front of him, as Roman went to hit Virgil on the arm.

_“Virgil”_ pulled out a black cane with a hook suddenly appearing in his hands and the Side hooked into Roman’s sash and sent him crashing into Patton who was standing back up.

The Side turned back to Logan, “Next?”

“No, I don’t think so Deceit, you’ve saved us the trouble of looking for you,” Logan refused.

“You monster,” Roman jumped up, his sword turning back into proper folded steel. “What did you do to Virgil?”

“Nothing,” Janus shrugged, his tone terse, “I resent the question.”

“Do you know Anxiety’s current location,” Logan asked.

“No,” Janus spoke with an overly smug tone. “I thought he was all buddy-buddy with you all.”

“So you took him as revenge,” Roman accused. “You couldn’t let him be himself.”

“ _I_ wasn’t letting him be himself?” Now Janus was sounding a bit angry. “If he was so himself and happy, why did he come to me, crying his eyes out?”

That was only partially true, Virgil _had_ been crying, but he’d been brought to Janus, and would hate that Janus had admitted even part of that. But the Light Sides didn’t need to know that.

“You liar,” Roman rebuked.

“Is he okay now?” Patton cut in, trying to look around Roman.

“He’s lying,” Roman reminded.

“He knows where Vee is,” Patton reminded angrily. “Is he okay? Is he hurt?”

“Oh now you all care,” Janus spat at Patton, pulling Roman away and almost throwing him into the busy street just to keep him occupied. “You let him wander around as if all of us didn’t have a target on our backs. You act like a caring parent but you basically threw him to the wolves!”

Unbeknownst to any of the Sides, even Logan, the nearby pharmacy sign had arced and shorted a bit and Anti leaned against the sign, watching the Sides arguing and waiting for a point to jump in and attack Logic again for his frustrating tech. But as he started listening to Morality and Deceit, he started to become more interested in the living soap drama in front of him.

“What was I supposed to do? Force him to talk and stay next to me the whole time?” Patton shouted back.

Roman was gearing up to try and attack Janus again, but the romantic Side was pulled back by Logan and told to wait for Patton to calm down and an actual fight to break out.

“How about something?” The deceitful Side demanded. “How about making sure he wasn’t climbing ass-backwards into a lion’s den and almost getting mauled to death?”

“He was fighting lions?” Patton gasped in shock and horror. “I love giant kitties.”

“I assume you are speaking figuratively,” Logan commented.

“Of course I am!” Janus shouted at the top of his lungs.

Anti was quietly chuckling to himself, his legs dangling over the roof of the pharmacy, he’d summoned a popcorn bag full of computer parts and pieces of a motherboard.

“You had one job,” Janus reminded Patton sharply, “you promised me you’d take care of him, and look at the mess you got him into. Dark is looking for your identity and he’s paying for the fact you have awful people on your side.”

“I didn’t do anything to Dark but be a good person,” Morality looked and sounded scandalized.

“You had to have done something,” Janus reminded. “You’re so careless, this is exactly why I took the others and left.”

“I was still new and emotional,” Patton defended heatedly. “What did you want me to say?”

“Try the next time you saw us when you called me a manipulative snake and an awful lawyer,” Janus answered.

“You were both of those things and you tried to make me look bad in front of the others,” Patton pointed out.

“Oh honey, I didn’t need any help with that,” Janus snidely commented. “You did my job better than I ever could.”

“You refused to let me be the defense attorney in your fake court case, of course we think you did a bad job,” Logan reminded.

“Hey,” Roman cut in. “It wasn’t that bad.”

“Don’t defend him on this,” Logan ordered, shaking his head once. “Not for this.”

“In other news,” Janus tapped his cane to the ground. “I am stepping in, and taking Anx and you can’t stop me because I still have all of his stuff.”

“Villain!” Logan called out, finally noticing Anti who was watching them from the pharmacy rooftop, quickly alerting the others.

“Aww, come on, yeh paused my show,” Anti complained, motioning with his bag of computer parts. “It was just starting to get good.”

“Begone foul demon!” Roman exclaimed, pointing his sword towards him.

“I mean,” Anti jumped down to the ground, motioning to Patton, “I get why you didn’t want to tell the rest of us, Snake Eyes, your ex is a wet blanket.”

“But I—” Patton began, before Janus slapped his hand over his mask, giving him a sharp look.

“My personal life is none of your business,” Janus spat. “Nor has it ever been.”

Anti just cackled a little bit, “Come on, I figured that like Dark you had better taste in men. Not _this_.”

“You can’t talk to the Captain like that,” Roman threatened.

Janus whispered something close to Patton’s ear, then he started to walk away. “Well, if you want some of the hero’s time, I’ll give it to you. I’m done.”

Anti looked at Logan, weighing his options a bit, then shrugged, “Nah, I’m already in a good mood, besides, I hear Dark an’ one ‘a his boys are tryin’ ta make a deal by the wharf, see yah.”

Then Anti disappeared into a cloud of green and black pixels, shooting into the closest electronic.

Everyone waited for a bit, before Logan commented, “He’ll be back.”

“What was that about?” Patton demanded, clearly upset at Janus. “We were never dating.”

Janus rolled his eyes, “Well if you want Virgil to come out the other side of this, you should do as I say.”

“How is that helping Virgil?” Patton demanded.

“Because which is worse,” Janus began, “if the other villains think we were together, or they find out about Thomas?”

“A lot of people know we can fuse,” Roman scoffed.

“Deceit is right,” Logan cut in.

“He’s a liar,” Roman reminded.

Logan frowned. “Any missing Side will be an eventual combination of Thomas lacking, and we do not know the state or which power Thomas will have when he comes back and making him even slightly vulnerable is something we can’t allow.”

“But this is dishonest,” Patton reminded with an edge of panic. “Lying is always wrong.”

“It’s not that much of a lie,” Janus smiled. “We were together once.”

Patton sputtered and shifted his weight uncomfortably, “Not like that.”

“Don’t worry,” Janus took Patton’s hand and kissed the back of it, “I won’t interrupt your little relationship with your lovebirds.”

Patton ripped his hand away, blushing, looking away. When he finally spoke he looked into Janus’s eyes, “You’re keeping him safe, right.”

Janus let out a disbelieving scoff, “Better than you are.”

“And you’d let him come back if he wanted it, right, because I’d hate to destroy your apartment,” Patton asked.

“If he wants to,” Janus said after a break pause, keeping Virgil’s face when the anxious Side told him he didn’t want to be a bad guy. Janus didn’t want Virgil to go back without understanding, but to Patton and the other Light Sides’ credit Virgil made it hard to protect him.

“Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to do some research for a mission,” Janus turned, calling over his shoulder. “Anxiety is at the apartment, if any of you care to visit, but so is Remus so do so at your own risk.”

Patton looked hopeful, they just watched Janus disappear with one of his illusions, “Let’s go.”

“We should save that for tomorrow,” Logan interrupted. “While he might be awake at this absurd hour, we should visit him tomorrow now that we know he is in a safe location.”

“He’s living with the Duke and a glorified car salesman,” Roman scoffed.

“We know his location, and he had lived with them for years before moving into the base,” Logan reminded. “Tomorrow when we are refreshed we can pay him a visit.”

Roman argued his point a little bit but they headed back to the base, it was late and they wanted to be ready for the troubles of the next day.

**Author's Note:**

> I’m not a moceit shipper but this paring makes for good divorce angst, and they do look cute.


End file.
